Physical Education

This term in Physical Education, students across all year levels embraced a variety of fun and active sports. Prep to Year 2 students focused on developing their fundamental movement skills through athletics, cross country running, and soccer, learning the importance of teamwork, coordination, and trying their personal best.

Our Year 3 to 6 students took on an extended program, whilst participating in athletics, cross country, soccer, and also AFL (footy). They built on their technique, sportsmanship, and game sense.

Well done to all students for a fantastic and active term!

SWIMMING LESSONS P-2

Our Prep to Year 2 students recently had a fantastic time building their swimming skills at the Paul Sadler Swim School! Throughout fun-filled sessions, the students gained water confidence, learned essential safety techniques, and practiced important swimming strokes under the expert guidance of qualified instructors. It was wonderful to see their enthusiasm and progress, with many students developing new skills in a supportive environment. These lessons not only promote physical fitness but also help instill lifelong water safety awareness—an important step in their growth both in and out of the pool. Well done to all our little swimmers for making such a big splash!

CROSS COUNTRY

Our whole school cross country event was held at the beginning of this term. Students from all year levels gave it their all on the track, with the top four finishers from grades 4-6 earning the opportunity to represent our school at the Bendigo Racecourse for the Division Cross Country.

At the division level, our students continued to shine. A special congratulations to Riley Fawcett and Sofia Allan, who both finished in the top 10 of their respective races—a truly outstanding achievement! We’re incredibly proud of all our runners who competed, with many personal bests and impressive efforts across the board. Well done to everyone who participated and represented our school with pride!

GAGA TOURNAMENT

Here are your champions 🏆

3-6 Athletics

The sun came out and gave us a beautiful day for our grade 3-6 Athletics day. Students participated in 9 events against their peers, with the top competitors selected for Cluster Athletics the following week. Thanks to everyone who helped out on the day!

Important Dates Coming Up:

Term 3

Division Girls AFL - July 29th
Boys/mixed AFL - July 30th
Netball - August 6th
3-6 Gym - August 11-13 & 18-20
Division Volleyball - August 21st
Division Basketball - September 5th
Division Athletics - September 15th

Enjoy your holidays,

Mr. Smyth and Mr Jacobs

Music

Grade 3-6:

Kickin' out the jams! After Term One's instrument taste testers, students selected their favourite two instruments and got to spend half a term on each, learning lots of new skills and songs.

Students spent around five weeks on two of either drums, ukulele, bass guitar, guitar or keyboards. Grade 3-5 students used our custom website with lessons made by Mr. Marsh from White Hills PS and Mr. Mayes, where Grade 6's had the option to explore other songs and artists that they like in an attempt to independently learn songs on their own.

The website is freely available, so if you have an instrument at home, the kids (or you!) can jump on and continue to learn some songs.

Grade 1- 2:

Grade 1/2 students have been consolidating all of the skills and knowledge they explored in Term 1. They have been learning to play the correct notes to the beat of the song, while using their knowledge of bars to anticipate when to change notes. They did this by playing our now famous "Beat Maze" game, stepping across the carpeted squares on every "1 beat", while dodging other players, avoiding lasers and trying to not get killed by the assassin!

They started to play a range of songs as a class, using boomwhackers, keyboards and xylophones, and we will continue to play these next term, with a slightly more difficult option for those who start to find it easy.

Students also learned our first few chords for the ukulele, with classes battling against other classes on our online games in Yousician. Grade 1's learned how to play C and Am, with the Grade 2's getting their fingers around the F chord. We will continue with this next term, with students attempting popular songs as well as our continued Yousician challenges.

Grade Prep:

Preps have been about pitch, or "high and low" and explored how we can use instruments and our voices to make high and low pitch sounds. We then moved on to "dynamics", or loud and quiet. They were able to follow a conductor's instructions and play loud or quiet based on simple visual instructions, and could move as different sea creatures depending on the pitch and dynamics of the sounds they could hear.

Students learned about out 7 natural notes, A - G. They played keyboards and xylophones to some simple songs with repeating patterns.

We also play drama games to encourage teamwork, build resilience, learn rules to games and be good winners and losers. Students learned how to play "Switch", which involved using big voices to call out "Switch" and also when battling someone in "Rock, Paper, Scissors", as well as being ok with losing and heading to the back of a line to rejoin the game.

Another great term with these amazing kiddos, and we are excited for more games, songs and dancing next term!

-Mr. Mayes

Visual Arts

🎨 Welcome to the Art Room! 🎨

TERM TWO SKILL DEVELOPMENT

Term two is one of our most technical terms in the art room as we take a sideways step into the more technical and skill based areas of art. Over the course of the term our students have broadened their understanding of artists, renowned works, sculptural skills, painting and drawing techniques, the 7 elements of art, light, shadow and form, cultural connections to the art world and much much more. Take a look at a some of the activities and work that has been going on as well as some of the take aways from our talented artists.

FROM THE ARTISTS:

STILL LIFE - Ally 3/4S

"In art class we are working on still life. We have practiced skills like light, shadow and making shape look 3D with our fruit and bowl artworks. Mr.P has been talking about with us about how to shade with paint and we have been working on real life sketching. If you scroll down you can look at some of our work . I have enjoyed working on my painting and seeing how much I have improved my sketching".

CULTURAL ART - 5/6O - Gwen

"In Art this term we have been leaning all about how make a sculpture in the shape of a Chinese Lion. We have worked with partners and groups to make them. I have enjoyed painting, and designing a theme with others. I am really looking forward to seeing what everyone's work looks like at the end."

PRINTMAKING - 2J - Addi

"I have had the best time in art this term learning new things like printmaking and block printing. We have had the chance to design flowers, shape and line landscapes and mountains and some of our own designs. Mr.P taught us how to use print making tools and taught us some great skills as well. This is something I would love to do again."

-Mr.Pocock

Auslan

Our Preps are so confident in using the Southern Dialect for colours.

Most of the signs are the same all over Australia (except for colours).

We know- Red, Green, Purple, Pink, Orange, Blue, Yellow, Black, Brown, White, Pink, Gold and Silver.

Silent Ball - focus EYE CONTACT

Eye contact is crucial in Auslan because it's a key element of visual communication. Deaf individuals rely on facial expressions and body language to understand what is being signed, and eye contact is a critical component of that process. It helps establish who is being addressed and indicates that someone is engaged in the conversation. Check out Prep Ashman/Pata showing excellent eye contact in a game of Silent Ball.

Our Incursion with Kerrie Taylor

Kerrie is an Auslan teacher and has been deaf since she was an infant. She is passionate about making books that bridge the gap between hearing and deaf people. Kerrie is the author of many classic children’s story books that incorporates Auslan (Australian Sign Language). Below Kerrie is signing a page in her book Monster with our grade 1s! Student were given the opportunity to ask many question about Kerrie and they particularly enjoyed learning about parts of the ear and how the cochlear implant and its processor work.

National Simultaneous Storytime -Just Got Even More Purr-fect!

2025 National Simultaneous Storytime, The Truck Cat by Deborah Frenkel and illustrated by Danny Snell. Signed in Auslan by James Byth this year’s story was brought the to life. Students loved watching this years National Simultaneous Storytime filmed on location at Sydenham Library in Victoria. The reading began with Jacek arriving in a real B-double truck alongside a truck driver and a cat, mirroring the characters in the story. We were amazed at how many signs we actually already knew when watching the Auslan version.

SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE SIGNS (5/6S)

SLOTH- because it's my favourite animal in the world because they are slow like me in the mornings. - Steph. B

WEEKEND - because I love weekends. -Milly. B

BUTTERFLY- because my cousins and I use it to play sign games. Rylie. M

BASKETBALL- it's my favourite sport and easy to sign - Flynn. P

DOG - it's my favourite as I love dogs - Mason. W

CHERRY - it's my favourite because cherries are yummy and the sign is epic. - Jade. K

Our STARS